Hark, how the birds do sing, And woods ring. All creatures have their joy; and man hath his, Yet if we rightly measure, Man’s joy and pleasure Rather hereafter, than in present, is…. Not that he may not here Taste of the cheer, But as birds drink, and straight...
O who will show me those delights on high Echo. I Thou echo, thou art mortal, all men know. Echo. No Wert thou not born among the trees and leaves? Echo. Leaves. And are there any leaves that still abide? Echo. Bide. What leaves are they? Impart the matter wholly....
Across my foundering deck shone A beacon, an eternal; beam. Flesh fade, and mortal trash Fall to residuary worm; world’s wildfire, leave but ash: In a flash, at a trumpet crash, I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and This jack, poor potsherd,...
A solemn, sombre, leaden Saturday – the muscles and joints of the day lie slack. Silence entombed in stillness – dread Sabbath. Who can be a believer on this day? I’ve come so far to shed tears here at last in the city of my heart. No one stirs. Faith creeps...
Not the empty tomb but the uninhabited cross. Look long enough and you will see the arms put on leaves. Not a crown of thorns but a crown of flowers haloing it, with a bird singing as though perched on paradise’s threshold. R.S. Thomas (1913-2000),...
No pain; no palm. No thorns; no throne. No gall; no glory. No cross; no crown. William Penn (1644-1718).
Since I am coming to that holy room Where with thy choir of saints for evermore I shall be made thy music; as I come I tune the instrument here at the door, And what I must do then, think here before. While my physicians by their love are grown Cosmographers,...
Sunshine of surprise enlightens the bridge of sighs O God who givest songs too sweet to sing, Have mercy on thy servant’s feeble tongue, In sacrificial silence sorrowing. And grant that songs unsung, Accepted at thy mercy-seat may bring New light into the darkness of...
Man at the best a creature frail and vain, In knowledge ignorant, in strength but weak, Subject to sorrows, losses, sickness, pain, Each storm his state, his mind, his body break, From some of these he never finds cessation, But day or night, within, without,...
This isn’t death, it’s glory! It isn’t dark, it’s light. It isn’t stumbling, groping, Or even faith, it’s sight! This isn’t grief, it’s having My last tear wiped away. It’s sunrise, it’s the morning Of my eternal day! This isn’t even praying, It’s speaking face to...
And whereas I had said; letters and photos And seen myself muscling through the flames, You would go back especially for your houseplants – Those dreamy weeping figs, this stocky yucca – What’s worth remembering remembered, leaving Both hands free for carrying out the...
I held your hand. The ancient bone beneath the flesh had been there since the dawn of time: you were an immemorial fact which none could cancel. Our staunch pact could not be broken. None could rinse away the rhyme and reason of that Elie beach with everything...